Let’s not deal with that today, she told herself and pitched the paper in the trash. One day at a time, right? And what the hell would happen to him if she walked out on him now? He’d end up living in a refrigerator carton under a bridge. She wouldn’t put a cat out like that. But as soon as he was more on his feet. .
She owed it to the man he used to be and, she hoped, would be again, once he found the thing that really rang his chimes. Not that she’d ever found that thing for herself.
She reached over to the antlers where her belt hung. Thing was a heavy sucker, especially now that she was packing that big wrench. She fastened it on, grabbed up her sack lunch and made for the door.
“Hey, babe,” Rory called to her. He seemed to be melting into that ratty lounger, ever more one with it. Colleen turned, tensing for the parting shot. “Don’t let the bear eat you.”
Her shoulders relaxed; she even smiled. “Not a chance,” she said. The bear wasn’t out there. And whatever was, she knew she wouldn’t break a sweat.
“This city’s a sewer.”
Ely Stern stood by the window, glowering down at the glinting towers of the city in the early morning sun. From behind the mahogany desk, Dr. Louis Chernsky considered the tall, lean figure: slicked-back, shining black hair, black Italian suit, handmade shoes, white linen shirt, black silk tie. White-gold Piaget on his wrist, white gold at his belt buckle. A stiletto of a man.
Sitting behind one’s desk was no longer really de rigueur for a therapist; in some circles it was frowned on. But on these Monday and Thursday mornings Chernsky appreciated the added distance it provided between him and this particular client.
The mood of Stern’s litany was always the same, only the specifics varying. “Water’s poison; air’s poison. I can’t stand the art in the galleries anymore. And the women, they look at you, they’re measuring you for the settlement.”
Chernsky stroked his beard, aware as always of how much of a Freudian caricature it made him seem, and doing it anyway. “You’re feeling isolated.”
Stern gazed out the big plate window. Like Jesus on the mountain, the kingdoms of earth lay before him, jagged eruptions of steel and stone and glass. The view added fifteen hundred dollars a month to the cost of the office, but Chernsky felt his clients would have scorned a lesser locale.
Stern’s eyes were dreamy. “I have this image in my mind. Going to the top of a building, emptying a flamethrower on the passing parade.”
Dr. Chernsky’s mind drifted to the Winnebago, and the route he and Susan had planned last night. Down to D.C., then through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Only two weeks, three days and twenty-two minutes away. His mouth said, “You’re feeling discontented.”
“No, I’m the guy they modeled the happy face after.” Stern snapped open a case (white gold, of course), fished out a Gitanes, lit it with a high, blue flame. He drew the smoke in deep then exhaled impatiently, turned on Chernsky. “I’ve been paying you more than the national debt. Just when do I start to feel better?”
Never; you’re a narcissist, thought Chernsky. But he said, “This isn’t only about feeling better. It’s about gaining insight.”
“Insight?” Stern’s black eyes flared. “I’ll give you an insight. I wake up every morning of my life angry. I wake up, and I feel like-”
A timer on Chernsky desk chimed. “We have to stop now.”
“We do,” Stern said, eyes hooded. Chernsky shrugged and let the silence settle. Stern blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Well,” he said. “Guess I’ll just go to the office and spread a little insight.”
WEST VIRGINIA-8:13 A.M. EDT
Fred retreated from the side of the bed when the door opened. He doubted their mother even saw him as she made her way across to where Bob lay. “Good morning, son.” Her voice was the soft archaic lilt that people who weren’t from Appalachia made jokes about: hick and redneck and hillbilly. At Stanford, Fred had worked very hard to eradicate it from his speech, but now the very intonations were like a gentle song.
She adjusted the pillows, checked all the tubes and bags and readouts. She’d nursed at Kanawha General before her agoraphobia got so bad, and from her letters and phone calls Fred knew that the nurse who looked after Bob in the daytime had filled her in on what to check and what to do.
“Mom,” said Bob, but of course she didn’t hear. She fussed gently with the catheter bag, changing it as neatly as a nurse would have, talking all the while.
“Now, let’s get rid of this old nasty bag and get you a nice new clean one. How you feeling this morning, honey? I had a tolerable night myself, but you know what I dreamed? I dreamed I was having dinner at Winterdon’s, you know that pretty restaurant they got on Hope for Tomorrow? Well, I was at the next table from Steve and Christine-you remember me telling you how Christine lied to Steve about being pregnant with Lester’s baby and broke into the hospital and switched the blood tests. . ”
She talked on, a soft babble like a brook, and from his corner Fred watched her with concern, pity and an agony of guilt. She looked worse than she had the last time he’d seen her, unbathed, her hair uncombed, clothed in a pastel warmup suit with food stains on the bosom and thighs. Damn it, Fred thought, she used to get out a little. Doesn’t Wilma Hanson still come over Saturdays and make sure she gets out to a store or something? He realized he hadn’t phoned Wilma in weeks.
Nor his mother, he thought. Had he called at all last week? He must have. He couldn’t remember.
He was so tired.
“. . locked in a dungeon under her house. But when Shelley went in to talk to Veronica, Owen accidentally threw the switch that sealed the door, so they were imprisoned together. . ” She wrung out a washcloth in a little basin of water, carefully cleaned Bob’s face, what she could reach of it around the tubes and the tape. Fred felt, across the room, his brother’s gratitude for the touch, for the knowledge that she cared, that she would perform these services for him and not leave him to the care of a paid nurse.
In the onyx dark of the screens, green and orange lines ran their jagged little courses, like a background whisper, All is well. All is well.
Mrs. Sanders, the day nurse, had told Fred three weeks ago that the doctors regarded Bob as hopeless, one of those heartbreaking, financially backbreaking cases in which the patient is stable but cannot be revived: A miracle, was what she had said. It will take a miracle.
But if the Source Project succeeded, a miracle was exactly what would become available.
Oh, Bob, whispered Fred, going to the side of the bed, gently reaching out to touch his brother’s still shoulder. Hang on. Hang on.
Chapter Five
WEST VIRGINIA-8:14 A.M. EDT
Glancing through the ground-floor window, half-screened by the honeysuckles that seemed sometimes as if they would devour the big white house on Applby Lane, Wilma watched Arleta Wishart sponge her son’s face and thought, I’ll give her a call as soon as I’m back from the Piggly-Wiggly.
Since the collision that had broken her son’s neck, Arleta, who had never dealt particularly well with the world, had barely been out of the house. Even as a child, Wilma had been aware that Mrs. Wishart Next Door didn’t like to be outside. Playing in the yard, she’d see the small, sloppily stout young woman in her white uniform hurrying to the bus stop to go to her job, then hurrying home again in the evenings as if she didn’t dare pause. As if there were snipers in the trees, ready to shoot her if she didn’t get to a safe place quickly.